Before his on-screen career — which took off after he filled the title role in Terry Gilliam's 1989 film The Adventures of Baron Munchausen — the English-born actor was the artistic director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in the 1980s.

His other movies -- including Time Bandits and Twelve Monkeys (rating: 88), about time travel, and The Fisher-King (rating: 73) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, about folk tales -- take various methods of storytelling.